CS343 Blog: Final Entry
- How well do you think the course conveyed those takeaways?
I think this course conveyed most of these takeaways very well! In particular: testing testing testing, looking for reuse and symmetry in code, and refactoring.
Every single day in class, we emphasized testing when running new code. In addition, throughout the semester, although we weren’t always talking about SWE refactoring, the idea of code cleanliness was always talked about and emphasized.
2. Were there any other particular takaways for you?
The main takeaway for me was to be resourceful!
In software engineering and application development, there are a TON of skills that you’ll need to know to be a well rounded developer. It’s hard to memorize all of them.
This is where being resourceful and Google come in! Although you may not know how to do something, you can 100% figure out how to if you know how to look for information and know what to search up.
Between this class and Ethical Hacking (also a phenomenal course, highly recommend), I really learned to be much more self sufficient and resourceful.
To be honest, I think being resourceful is one of the most important characteristics a person can have (in software engineering, and really in any profession).
3. How did you feel about cold calling?
I felt great about it! Especially because this semester’s class was online, it helped bring engagement to the class.
4. How did you feel about office hours?
To be honest, I never went. Senior year baby!
5.How did you feel about lab sessions?
I’m not 100% sure what lab sessions are.
6. What required tool did you not know and now find very useful?
Bootstrap!
Going in to this course, my goal was to learn a good foundation of frontend development, including designing and styling up the UI.
Doing this, I learned a lot about Bootstrap, how it works, how the grid works, and much more! I highly recommend using this frontend framework to help with your UI and styling.
7. What’s the most useful Web dev tool that your group used that was not required?
Chrome dev tools!
This is a built in debugging tool that Chrome provides that allows you to do CRAZY things with your web page.
With this, you can look at network requests/responses, load times, styling, and much much more.
This tool is CRAZY helpful in debugging web pages and a great way to get a sense of what’s going on when your website runs.
8. How did you feel about your group having to self-teach many, many technologies?
Tough, but fun!
This is how the real world is — you’re going to have to be resourceful and figure things out.
This course is a great primer for arguably one of the most important characteristics to have — I hope you’re ready to drink from the firehose!
9. Give me your suggestions for improving the course.
Hard to say — since the course was fully online in Zoom, I have no idea how you’d normally run it in person!
If I had to suggest one thing that I feel like would add a lot to this course: Mastermind groups for projects!
When I say that, I mean that it would be really cool if you guys set up certain times where people could talk to each other about their development problems (frontend, backend, CI, AWS infrastructure, etc.)
I guess that’s kind of what office hours were for, but a dedicated time during class/after class for students to converse, discuss, and learn, would be super cool!
